Friday, December 30, 2016

The first prototype of the Aermacchi M-345HET (High Efficiency Trainer) two-seat basic jet trainer has successfully completed its first flight from Venegono Superiore airfield (Varese, Italy) on December 29.

U.S. Air Force has released a request for proposal (RFP) to replace its E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) aircraft fleet with a modern and efficient business jet based platform.

Thursday, December 22, 2016

On Saturday, December 17th, the team who participated in building, testing, and flying the Rutan Voyager gathered to celebrate the 30th anniversary of its flight at the Mojave Air & Spaceport in Mojave, California.

General Atomics carried out successful first flight of the company’s production representative MQ-1C Gray Eagle ER Unmanned Aircraft System from its El Mirage Flight Operations Facility in Adelanto, Calif., on October 29th.

The Bombardier CS300 airliner entered commercial service with Latvian airline airBaltic on Wednesday with a maiden commercial flight from Riga to Amsterdam.
airBaltic is operating the CS300 aircraft in a 145-seat, two-class configuration. The airline has ordered a total of 20 CS300 aircraft.

The C Series aircraft wing, center wing box, wing-to-body fairing, empennage, aft fuselage, and nacelles are all made of composite materials allowing for over 2,000 lb. of weight savings.

Composites not only make the aircraft lighter, they also reduce the number of components in the assembly and allow for greater simplicity and lower costs.

The C Series fuselage is manufactured using Third Generation Aluminum-Lithium, one of the most advanced aluminum alloys on the market. It is a lot lighter, about 40% more fatigue resistant and 250 % more resistant to corrosion than traditional aluminum.

The aircraft has the best-in-class maintenance program with 850 flight hours and 8,500 flight hours for A-check and C-check respectively as well as a 12-year interval for heavy structural checks.

Since entering revenue service with SWISS, the CS100 aircraft has completed more than 1,600 flights — carrying over 156,560 passengers, covering over 1,181 500 km and serving 18 destinations.

Boeing delivered to NATO the first of fourteen E-3A Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft with cockpit upgrades that improve mission-readiness, decrease customer costs and reaffirm Boeing’s overall commitment to the fleet.

Emirates today launched the world’s shortest scheduled Airbus A380 service, flying a distance of 379 kilometres with a total travel time of 1 hour and 20 minutes from Dubai to Doha, and 1 hour 10 minutes on the return journey.

The Boeing C-17 Globemaster III strategic airlifter is by far one of the biggest fuel consuming aircraft in U.S. Air Force fleet due to its high utilization rate to deliver troops and cargoes to U.S. bases around the world.

Since the type's first flight in 1991, worldwide fleet of 279 C-17 ever produced had crossed 3 million flight hours.